1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method and system for combining the power, flexibility, and access to information and communications of the Internet with the simplicity, reliability and wide availability of the existing plain old telephone system (POTS). More specifically the invention allows persons using conventional phone technology to browse, search, store, and create information stored on the Internet in Hypertext Transport Protocol (http) format, communicate using Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) and Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) email formats, and to manage attempts by others to contact them through the telephone system.
2. Background
The access to information and communications, provided by the Internet, has fueled its explosive growth. Email creates world wide, virtually instantaneous messaging. Documents and messages that would previously have been sent via postal mail, over night delivery, or facsimile can be sent via email. The World Wide Web has proven to be an amazing means of delivering information. News, weather, sports and all types of commercial information are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Many services allow users to personalize the information that is delivered. Search engines allow people to track down the significant as well as the obscure in seconds. The powers of these technologies encourage all types of organizations to put their information into http format. However, security concerns have slowed the spread of electronic commerce over the Internet, but only by comparison to the explosive growth of email and information delivery.
The facts surrounding the growth of the Internet are exceeded only by the projections of its future growth. As of mid 1997, surveyors found that approximately 50% of businesses within the United States have an Internet presence. Internet access has jumped from between 30 and 40 million people to 80 million. These same organizations forecast that by the year 2001 between 200 and 300 million people will have Internet access. Over 30% of U.S. households have a computer. 10% of those households have more than one computer.
Yet there are limits to the growth of the Internet and the access to information that it provides. Many people lack the skills and inclinations needed to access the Internet. Many people lack the technological skills needed. On a wider scale, many more lack knowledge of the English language in which most Internet content is written. For many, literacy itself is a barrier to access. Costs also are a barrier. The equipment to obtain Internet access runs from the hundreds to the thousands of dollars. Plus there are monthly charges.
The consequences of these barriers are the other side of the explosive growth figures. While anywhere from 20 to 40% of the U.S. population have or will have Internet access. 60 to 80% either do not or will not have access. Similarly while 50% of all U.S. businesses have web sites, 50% don""t have them. Outside of the United States both consumer and business participation are much lower. In some developing countries the figures are probably under 1%. These barriers tend to focus the Internet towards the technology oriented concerns of the businesses and users that have fueled its growth.
What is needed is a means for combining the power, flexibility, and access to information and communications of the Internet with the simplicity, reliability and wide availability of the existing plain old telephone system (POTS). Such a system would provide a techno-equalizer for people and businesses without Internet access. It also encourages further the explosive growth of the Internet. There would be a direct route to all consumer and businesses, world wide, having access to the Internet and to sophisticated messaging and communication services. With a universal audience, business and non-commercial entities would have a compelling rationale for deploying both their information resources and access to their products and services through Internet protocols.
For all its possible benefits, providing Internet access via POTS and conventional telephone equipment creates multiple problems. The first problem is voice itself. A computer screen is a random access device. You can quickly scan the screen and focus at any point that interests you. Voice, on the other hand, is a serial medium. It has a very limited xe2x80x9cviewxe2x80x9d and it is difficult to xe2x80x9cscanxe2x80x9d ahead. Many systems such as those at movie theatres do not allow user input. The message is played and the user must listen until he/she hears the entire message or gets to the information desired. Responding to voice systems is generally time consuming as well. Menu items are constructed for non-users. They are xe2x80x9cfriendly,xe2x80x9d with pleasant greetings, detailed explanations, and numerically keyed menus.
The telephone is also a very limited input device with only 12 keys. Phones with the keypad on the handset, such a slim line, cordless and cellular versions, make listening and responding even more difficult. Last, but not least, many functions require entering long account numbers and then verifying those account numbers with a personal identification number (PIN) number. Unless those numbers are used very frequently the user must carry some kind of listing of the numbers. That creates the possibilities of losing the record, not having the listing when it is needed, or both. If the listing is lost, the users account may be exposed to fraudulent use. If the listing is not available, the service is also not available.
The telephone system itself has limited features. New features come slowly, especially when considered in light of the explosive growth of Internet services. Even today access control is very limited. A user can obtain an unlisted number, obtain caller id service and a caller id device, or use an answering machine to control access. All of these devices have distinct drawbacks. The unlisted number prevents anyone without the number from contacting the user, even if the user would welcome the contact. Many times the number is compromised and the user must go to the trouble and expense of changing the number. Only to have it compromised again. Caller id, especially the version that provides the name to which the phone is listed, is helpful. However if a user has multiple phones and/or cordless phones, the devices have limited usefulness. In addition, callers can have their name and number blocked. Screening calls through an answering machine result in numerous inconveniences.
Most telephone switches, both Telephone Company and private branch exchange (PBX), are based on proprietary architectures. This makes them both expensive and difficult to add value to.
With these drawbacks in mind, the present invention provides a surprisingly effective system which combines the benefits of the Internet and POTS, and eliminates or avoids these drawbacks. The system of the invention must be accessible by both conventional phones and by inexpensive, enhanced devices. It must also optimize both the information and the choices presented to users and the ways in which they respond of those choices. Access to user""s and their personal information must be both rapid and secure, a difficult combination. Finally the system must be inexpensive.
The present invention provides a method and system for allowing devices using voice and Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) tones to connect, through the system to the Internet. This connection can be used to access, store and create http compatible information. The same connection can be used for messaging and interactive communication. In the preferred embodiment, the system can be used to manage and control attempts to contact the user for the purpose of interactive communication.
Given a Uniform Resource Locator (See http://www.imc.org/Searchablelrfc1738) (URL), the system obtains the information available at that URL using the http mechanism. A URL is a compact string representation of the location for a resource that is available via the Internet. Once the information is obtained the system presents the information to the user by transforming the downloaded text into speech in a manner emulating the behavior of a web browser. In a referred embodiment, the user possesses an enhanced device that allows the user to rapidly navigate both the current web page and the Internet generally. There are a variety of enhanced devices described herein. In general those devices allow the user to overcome the limitations of voice technologies. A number of alternative input means are presented, including the use of a conventional phone.
The system presents several alternative means of allowing the user to select an alternative, xe2x80x9cclickxe2x80x9d. In the preferred embodiment, one or more audio cues inform the user that the material being presented is an alternative on which he/she may act. The audio cues may vary to indicate to the user the type of alternative that is being presented. The user may xe2x80x9cclickxe2x80x9d by touching a key on the telephone keypad, using a xe2x80x9cvoice mousexe2x80x9d, or with a xe2x80x9cclick on sound.xe2x80x9d
If the user finds information, which he/she wishes to store, the system allows the user to store the information or the location of the information. He/she can later access that information via the mechanisms described herein.
The system can also be used to create content that is subsequently stored in http format. The user navigates to the location that he/she wishes to modify using the mechanisms described above. Once at that location the user can add, replace, store, or delete existing content. New or replacement content can be added by voice, digitally stored or recognized, text entry, facsimile, or information stored via the mechanism described above. Links to other http content can also be created.
A similar mechanism exists for access to message. The system obtains the user""s messaging address. The user""s messages are accessed. If any new messages have arrived, the user is informed of the number of messages. The user may then access his/her messages, both new and old, send or reply to messages, and manage existing messages. The system also allows non-users of the system to send and receive email from one or more system users.
An alternative embodiment allows the user to initiate an email messaging session with a user unknown to him/her, based upon that user having identified him/herself as being members of a category. The user""s contact is given an identifier. That identifier serves as the basis for replying, through the system, to that user. Members of the category may reply to the user through the use of the identifier. If the category member wishes to also be anonymous, his/her reply is also assigned an identifier. That identifier is used by the system as the basis for processing messages by the original sender to that user. An indefinite number of messages may be processed in this way until one or both parties decide to shed their anonymity or cease the messaging process.
The user may also communicate interactively and/or control attempts by others to communicate with him/her. In the preferred embodiment users wishing to control contact attempts enable a contact suppression device which monitors contact attempts. Only contact attempts processed through the system are allowed to reach the user. This forces persons attempting to contact the user to use the system. The system has the capability of processing user defined contact attempt rules. Those rules allow the user to selectively permit, restrict, or act upon contact attempts.
To effectively overcome the limitations of the voice medium, the system must possess and track information about the user and his/her preferences. To maintain this information the system must have a mechanism for identifying users. Receiving stations obtain the user""s identity, the name of the system capable of authenticating the user""s identity and the user""s authentication. If the user""s identity is not maintained on the local system, the receiving system attempts to locate the system capable of authenticating the user. If the address of that system is not contained on the receiving system, the receiving system attempts to locate it by contacting a master system that maintains the addresses of all systems of its type. Once the address is obtained the information is passed to the system capable of authenticating the user. The user""s identity is obtained and the received authentication is checked against the stored authentication. A number of error conditions are possible. The master system may be unknown, the master system may not know the received authenticating system, and the received authentication may not match the stored authentication. In all of these error conditions, an error is returned and the user is allowed access using the default user profile.
To speed this process, the preferred embodiment utilizes an auto connection device. Auto connection allows a user to transmit his or her identity and authentication automatically upon the initiation of a contact attempt. An example would be a device outwardly resembling a telephone. Upon lifting the handset, the device transmits the identity and authentication. This requires that the auto connection device store information necessary for authentication. Upon receiving a signal, such as the handset being lifted, the device transmits the information to the receiving station. In one alternative, this device stores a code indicating success or failure in creating a connection. The contact suppression device, described above, can permit communication when the authentication system is unavailable.
To secure this process, the preferred embodiment allow the employment of a security device. This device can contain one or more encryption keys that can be used to encrypt the information sent to the authentication system. In the preferred embodiment, the authentication system creates a temporary key, which is used to encrypt the session""s transmissions.
All of these identification mechanisms exist in order to make available information about the user and his/her preferences. Once a user has been identified, user information is loaded which allows the system to present optimized alternatives to the user. In a further alternative, the system can obtain information about the user""s location, contact means, date/time, etc. That information can be used to modify the choices presented to the user in light of the exigent circumstances.
The system also maintains the user""s preferences for information delivery. Based upon those preferences, information searches are conducted to obtain information that is most likely to be of interest to the user.
All of the user""s choices are monitored. The user""s preferences are modified in light of his/her actions. Thus the user""s preference are adapted to the user""s on-going behavior patterns. The recording of the user""s decisions allow the system to create personal information categories for the user. Those categories and their rankings in user preference are the basis for obtaining information to present to the user and the order in which that information is presented.
Additional advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the invention, as claimed.